This is the stage in the community of Dragoman where i went with Felicia, my PC friend.  They were having this celebration of their liberation from Turkish occupation in the late 1800s.  They do this every year on or around March 3.  This is a group of babas ( grandmothers) who sang a lot.  They looked like they were having fun.

Young girls in native dress doing traditional dancing.  Very very nice and lots of community involvement.

This is a swamp in that same community, Dragoman, which is very near the Serbian border.  The communists drained the swamp to use the water for irrigating fields nearby but when they were deposed, an NGO came in and has been working to reclaim the swamp...they started with only 2 bird species and now have over 200

Culture shock....this is the interior of the Bulgaria Mall which is right across the street in Sofia from that sorry looking building I had a picture of earlier.  The mall is beautiful !!!!!

This is back in Dragoman...a stork nest that is used year after year.  They aren't here yet...don't know where they go but they come later in march, I think.

 

Another shot of the interior of that mall.

That says "Picadilly" above the word Daily.  Its another grocery store.  Its that cyrillic alphabet...very interesting.

I have seen this sweet doggie here several times waiting for his owner to come out of this groceery store that is downstairs.

That says " Parking" and thats a Citroen, lots of them here. 

These three musicians were making cheerful music so I gave them a little money and took their photo.  I have no idea what that sign says but this is the entrance to one of the undergound pedestrian passageways that keep  pedestrians out of the traffic at busy intersections....good idea.

This is one of the buildings tat was constructed during the communist times, still fully occupied but no one maintains the exterior.  I am sure the interiors are perfectly nice.  Its right across the street from the new Bulgaria Mall which I have photos of later.

One of the underground passagways for pedestrians, lot of graffiti but no trash and no homeless people

That says " fantastico" and its a grocery store.

 

This is one of many vendors of Martinitzas...little red and white things they give to each other in anticipation of the arrival of spring.  Notice RayBan right behind it....

The bus police caught thislady ( the one leaning on the window) on the bus without a ticket and they tried to get her off to write a her a fine/ ticket, but she refused to move so they finally gave up.  They got off the bus and she rode a couple more stops and then got off.  I guess she does not fear the Bulgarian police the way we do....of course, these were just bus police !! I ALWAYS buy a ticket...taking no chances !!!!



This is the road in front of the New Bulgarian University.  I wanted to show the horse cart but didn 't want them to see me taking the photo.  These folks are  called Roma...I think they are who we thought of as the gypsies.  Anyhow, they are clearly the underclass and live separately and very poorly.

This and the next photo were taken at a concert at the New Bulgarian University.  They set up and played in this gallery where these old painting are displayed.  I was told they are owned by a minister of some part of the current government and he is also on the board of trustees of the University.  I chatted with the bass player at the intermission and she gave me two tickets to another concert in Sofia the following night.  She is very charming and a great bass player.

This is Stanka,  the art therapist at the clinic where I am working .  She is doing a puppet show with  the kids and these are the puppets.  She made them...she is holding the owl, below is the turtle and at the bottom is the frog  She used leather and chunks of interesting wood burls, etc and painted on the eyes etc.  She is quite good with  the kids...they love when she comes.

Clearly this is a different experience than Nicaragua, but good, in very different ways.  I have been here a month already...time does fly.  We got snow last night so it is beautiful here now.  I have learned to say, " samo angliski" which means "only english."  Several people have come up to me to ask questions in Bulgarian and I have to say this...I always follow up with " isvinete" which means "sorry."  I think they understand and everyone has been really nice.

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