This is below my window...kids having a ball on their sleds on a tiny hill !!!



Interesting....different....not so bad, after all.  The folks tell me that due to the mentality from communistic times when the exteriors were taken care of by the governement, people have pride in their interiors but not their exteriors.  I guess ??? Anyhow, the people I have encountered have been very friendly and thats what counts. 

This is the view from my window side.....my first day.  I got used to it.

Outdoorish seating at a Restarurant named "Happy" and they serve sushi so I think its a japanese venture.  Regardless, nice for a quick capucino without actually being inside

Just a house in the vicinity of the ski lift.  Bus stop sign in front.

This is a portion of the trail that apparently runs down the mountain, thru the houses to the lower part where many buses are available to go back into Sofia.

Another part of the path down the mountain, this is where is crosses over the parking lot of the restaurant where we had lunch.

Beautiful snow here, none in Sofia about half an hour away by bus.  More of the path.

A couple of snow boarders who we let pass us. :)



A teen having some fun on a trash can lid or something like that...she was with those kids up ahead.

This is the driveway and pkg lot of the restaurant located at the base of the lift.

The inside of one of the rooms....it was very big, busy and beautiful.  Their menu appeared to be in German and Bulgarian....they had it in English too.

Dear sweet people,
Remember that other Peace Corps I was in for two years in Nicaragua...well, I think I am in the other one....:)  I hope some of you are old enough to remember that line from the movie Private Benjamin when Goldie Hawn joined the Army and they have her marching in the rain with a heavy pack, etc. and she says something about wanting to be in that "other" army( the one the recruiters had told her about, the one with the condos on the water), well, I am embarrassed to say this since I am here on the taxpayers' dime, but........I'm in that " other army" Goldie was talking about. 

This is my first blog post from Sofia, Bulgaria.  I have been here exactly two weeks ( as of yesterday) and it has been all good.  I am in a decent apartment but will be moving to another one closer to the center of the city and closer to my work assignment.  I don't have any photos to send you right now but  my assignment is working in a clinic which is part of the New Bulgarian University which is a private university here.  Its a liberal arts school with a very active arts program - I went to a play there last night which was presented in Bulgarian so I did not understand much at all but it was still very enjoyable.  Kids are kids and they were terriffic.  I am going to ask my language teacher to translate the playbill for me so maybe I can read the play on line.  I can't even read the cyrillic language well enough to decipher the playwright's  name.

Anyway, the clinic is part of one of the University's education degree programs which offers  a dual degree in speech therapy and social work and they opened this clinic to give their students an opportunity to have some clinical experience.  The director of the clinic program is an associate professor of speech disorders at the University. She is a medical doc with a Ph.D. in speech disorders.   Many of the very young children who are enrolled in the clinic seem to be on the autistic spectrum and others have a variety of communication disabilities ( one girl is deaf and has huge behavioral problems in school) ...not sure of them all.  So, I am assisting with the therapy in a variety of ways but another of my assignments is to help them identify funding sources locally so that the clinic can continue.  The university provides the therapy offices and space, utilities etc but the salaries of the therapists apparently are paid by the fees charged the students who come to the clinic for therapy.

The therapists seem to be very dedicated so they are very easy to work with.  Also, almost everyone I come into contact with ( other than the little children) speaks English which really makes things a lot easier.  I am trying to learn some basic phrases in Bulgarian, like "how much does this cost ?" but I am not going to work real hard on that...I am going to spend most of my energy on the goals at the clinic and working with various groups who want to practice their English.  I start next Wednesday with a group at the "American Corner" in the public library.

Today I went on a venture with another PC volunteer to see the ski mountain that is about  1/2 hour from downtown Sofia.  Its Vitosha and beautiful.  We rode the city bus up to the bottom of the lift and had planned to ride the lift up but decided to eat lunch in a beautiful restaurant at the base rather than get on the lift.  It looked pretty cold but we might do it next weekend.  I am attaching some photos of our outing.  You'll see what I mean about this being the "other army."

Turns out I can't attach the photos from home as the internet connection is too slow so I'll go into the university tomorrow morning early and use their fast wifi to post the photos.

More later...

Pat

Todavia tenemos temblores

If you can't tell =), my Spanish is getting better.   ( We still have tremors)

Anyhow, this is the promised update.  We still have tremors and mild eruptions.  But, not in my department of Leon so they brought all of us home to Leon last Monday but the volunteers from Chinandega, which is the department in which the active volcano, San Cristobal, is located are still on evacuation.  It is one week today and I am sure they are all more than ready to go back to their sites.  The first couple of days were sort of fun in a real nice hotel in Granada, but since then they have been sent to live with other volunteers or training site families so its not as cushy as that nice hotel, Hotel Alhambra, for any of you who are familiar with Granada.

BTW, while I was in Granada I ran into a woman from Denver.  I noticed her because her golden retriever was stretched out on the tile floor, panting while lying down.  She was shocked that I knew it was a golden as most people in Nicaragua ( with good cause) don't know the breed.  I was a little sorry for him, he looked so hot, but she says he is getting used to the change in temp and I am sure she gives him a cool place to rest at home.  We had a nice chat.  She retired early from some very highly paid job with a .com or IT firm and is looking for a place to live for a while.  She rented her home in Wash Park in Denver, so I am sure she is doing fine financially.  I promoted Peace Corps response to her with her IT skills but not sure what she'll do.  We exchanged Emails...don't know if we'll stay in touch or not but she seems like a real nice person.  Her name is Amanda so of course, she is very cool.

Anyway, can't say much here as we don't have electricity right now and my battery is runnng down.

Bottom line, I leave in a week for a week in US with my sis for serveral days and then she and I are driving to PA to meet up with our kids, grandkids, their families and our brother John and his daughter.  BTW, if you are in Ithaca, NY in early November, he is doing the musical/ play 1776 -Days of Revolution, which I am I coming home early to see....it will be worth it !!!! And on the closing night, Nov 6 we are having a bash to celebrate the reelection of Obama !!!!  Wouldn't miss that for all the world. 

Battery almost gone...no fan, very hot, going to take another shower.....

Pat

Temblores aqui !!!

Dear Friends of Mother Earth,

Well, she is finally fed up with us down here....and she is blowing her top !!

My companjeros and I have been evacuated out of our sites and about 45 of us are in a hotel in Granada...and its quite a nice hotel !!!  At first they collected us all and took us to Managua but then Managua got some more temblores so they loaded us back in a bus and brought us all to Granada which apparently has not suffered temblores in the past.

Also, we have a volcano, Mt. Cristobel, in Chinandega, near Leon, which is sending up a strong plume of smoke or ash and some lava has been reported.  I guess they'll be able to see more once it gets dark.  People were saying , "its time" for an eruption of some size so, quien sabe.

I guess when the earth shifts with a temblor, the volcanos react too.  Anyhow, as far as I know, Peru has had some temblores and I just heard on the TV that Costa Rica has had 4 or 5 late today of some significant size.  So....we have to wait and see.  Now they are telling us that we will be here until Monday at least.  It will all depend on what the volcano and mother earth decides to do.

We got the notice of the evacuation on our cell phones about 10 am this morning and we finally got into the hotel here about 6:30.  It was a tiring day of shuffling around but at least we are in a very very nice place for another day or so.  The other volunteers are very nice and its a great group to be with.

My neighbor is in charge of feeding my cats until I get back and I have asked her by text message to tell Helen, the little girl I am teaching to read, where I am and when I plan to be back. 

I'll post more news when I have something definitive.

Atentamente,
Pat

University of Nicaragua in Leon and Casa de Cultura

I am attaching some photos I took recently.  Maybe I've already posted some others of the U. of N. but I just LOVE this building.  Its the administration building and there are classrooms in it too. 

My Spanish classes are in the Casa de Cultura so I have included some photos of it too.  This used to be a private residence but the owners were Somosa supporters so they fled, abandoning their home,  to the US as the Sandinista revolution gained momentum in Leon in the late 70s.  I guess they still live in the US but in the 80s or 90s the US govt apparently gave Nicaragua the money to pay the family for this house and the title went to the Mayor of Leon and now its a cultural center.  Apparently there is some dispute about how much money was paid for the house ( a Sandinista told me it was 2 or 3 times the actual value of the property). 

The front of the UNAN administration/classroom  building

This is the exterior of the Casa de cultura.

Exterior of the Casa de Cultura showing their list of activities and the sign for the Spanish language school ( yeah, I know, hard to read)

Obviously, the now empty swimming pool wiht overlooking balcony and the archway going to changing rooms, now bathrooms. 

One of the interior garden areas, pool is at this end.  The gate allows access for cars from that street.  The Casa is on a corner.

Open stairway with pretty ironwork

Mural at the top of the stairs

Anyhow, the pictures are pretty much self explanatory and the house must have been fabulous as the architecture is beautiful altho keeping up the maintenance is difficult.  I don't know what kind of funding they have, probably not much.  I think I have posted earlier a photo of the painting of Regan with a gun sitting on a Nicaraguan native woman's shoulders, she has slit her wrists and there are  little caricatures of Kissinger and Haig dressed as court jesters standing at her feet.  That painting is hanging in the Casa totally unprotected, altho it is under the overhang in the courtyard.  It should be in a much more protected place but......funding.