Lakes and Lessons

What a short but long week it has been!

Last weekend was an actual long weekend, with Monday and Tuesday off. Many of my Fulbright peers shipped off to other countries, but I knew I wanted to stay close in to Blagoevgrad to really settle into my new home (or at least try to). I went out to dinner last Wednesday night with Tracy from AUBG (American University in Bulgaria - a prestigious American-style university located approximately 400 meters from my apartment). She asked me if I wanted to go to the 7 Lakes region of the Rila Mountains with her on Saturday.

Instant plans made!

The 7 Rila Lakes are glacial lakes not far at all from Blagoevgrad, at least how the bird flies. The actual trip there (and back) was a true adventure. I wouldn't have made it without Tracy and her Bulgarian skills. Our trip to the mountain involved jumping onto an AUBG van on its way to Sofia with conference attendees from all over the world, haggling prices with a cab driver to take us to the lift from Dupnitsa, and finally a gondola to the trailhead. There the actual hiking began...I struggled at the beginning but eventually got my hiking legs back under me. The result was a phenomenal view and surprisingly cool weather (yet perfectly sunny, which I read and hear is not usual for the lakes).

Tracy overlooking her lakes 

The ride back was where the real fun began. We rode the gondola/ski lift back down then walked around until Tracy managed to find us a ride with a couple from Plovdiv, after he refused once then changed his mind. Their Mercedes was not a bad way at all to get down the mountain. They dropped us off in the middle of some unknown town because they were headed in a different direction than Dupnitsa at that point. We wandered down the main road and then found a bus stop. We jumped on a bus that looked straight out of 1950 and barreled our way down to Dupnitsa. At the bus station, we learned that there were no more buses to Blagoevgrad from there, so we bought train tickets and hopped on an hour later. 

Excited for my first Bulgarian train ride 

The rest of the weekend was somewhat frustrating, as I had to wait until the following Wednesday for Vivacom to bring my router. There are only so many times I could walk over to AUBG, act like a student, and get me some Wifi. It's amazing how reliant we become on technology, and we often don't realize that until we're separated from it. 

So I spent some time making the apartment more "mine": 

Shout out to my favorite mountain 

Natalia and Jennifer made me promise to put up their drawings. 

It always helps to remember my students back in Vegas 

This week only involved two days of teaching, but I think those two days alone reduced my "What in the world is going on?" percentage by about 50%. I knew that I was going to be teaching mostly 8th graders, so I was thrilled to finally meet them on Wednesday. They are just as sassy and unpredictable as my 8th graders were back in the States. 

The difference in ability level between students is really pushing me as a teacher, though. I knew I needed differentiation (buzzword alert) in Vegas, but this is a whole 'nother level. My students at EГ come from many different villages and schools with wildly different English levels. 8th grade is the first year of high school here, so these students are totally new and absolutely not on the same page. And I now know so well what they feel like: you feel dumb. I feel dumb walking into a store and wanting to say "Olives please?" but instead I have to fumble around with my words. It's not that I don't know what olives are; it's that I don't know the Bulgarian word for them (маслини, I now know). So I really sympathize with those students. I have a lot of work to do to be able to reach students at such different levels, but I'll get it done. 

With all of the changes and all of the uncertainty and "I can't do this" milling about in my head, I made a decision this weekend to focus on the little victories. It may be something as small as getting a load of laundry done correctly (the machine is in German and doesn't like to do what I tell it to), making a pseudo storage area out of cut-up boxes, or successfully asking for a check at a restaurant, with my speech/debate students filming it because "No foreigners ever speak Bulgarian." This is the first time I've lived alone and it's in Bulgaria. I can't expect to immediately feel at ease and at home, but I'm getting there one small victory at a time. 

In the meantime, I decided to go full Bulgarian and make myself a shopska salad. I'm thoroughly pleased with the results. Happy early weekend, Fulbrighters! 

Jesus Take the Wheel, for Real

The last few days have been tough and lonely and anxiety-inducing, but today was a great "first day" of school. Metaphorically, Jesus took the wheel. I'll explain later.

Blagoevgrad has been great so far, but it's also been lonely. It's hard to go from being in Sofia for orientation with 30 other Americans to being the (seemingly) only American in town. Being in Sofia was somewhat like being a tourist, so we were shielded from a certain level of culture shock. But now everyone's hours and train rides and bus rides away, so it's been tough. 

One nice part of Blagoevgrad has been my apartment. A German teacher at my school lived here for the prior 6 years, and he spent a lot of time, energy, and money upgrading it. I'm lucky to have things like AC and a beautifully-tiled bathroom. It looks like a communist-style block of apartments from the outside, but it has character and is spacious on the inside. Plus, my bed is huge. I know that my school went out of their way to make me a big enough bed, so I'm incredibly grateful for that. 

It's also been hard because my teaching schedule is still so uncertain. I knew that was going to be difficult coming in; in Las Vegas, I enjoyed knowing my classes, knowing what I'd be teaching, and having an idea of how to do things like make copies, discipline students, etc. That information is a bit harder to get here, not helped by the language barrier. But I've met up with many of the Speech & Debate students several times, and they've made me feel so much more at home. 

Today was the official first day of school, In Bulgaria it involves a ceremony with a whole bunch of flowers and speeches. I was so incredibly nervous on the walk to school: would I see my classes today? Would I know my schedule? I walked into the building and was recognized as the "American" and quickly whisked away into the director's office. She doesn't speak English but does speak Russian. We had an interesting conversation mixing Bulgarian, Russian, and even a bit of German. Whatever gets the message across - nonverbal communication works well, too! 

For the ceremony, I was not actually there for long as my mentor teacher had prepared for me to go to the police station to register myself as a resident of Blagoevgrad. I was put into a green van with a man who spoke no English and taken to a cavernous building with long lines. Not a word was spoken in English, so I don't really know what happened, but I got my card stamped. And then day 1 of teaching was done! 

So I decided to go on a walk. I could have either stayed in my apartment and sulked at the fact that I still didn't know my teaching schedule and was anxious about being in a new country, but I decided to get out. I didn't know where, but I wanted to walk around. Once I started, I decided "I'll head up." I kept winding my way up the roads until they turned to dirt roads and eventually trails. When I smelled the pine trees, I knew I had to keep going. I'd heard there was a cross overlooking Blagoevgrad, so when I saw the cross in the distance, I tried to keep heading in that direction (with some switchbacks, barbed wire fences, and abandoned-looking zoos thrown in there). 

Oh and there was an elderly lady who forced me to take a peach. This was fairly far into the hike, so I was sweaty and probably looked tired, thirsty, and hungry. The peach was amazing. 

Eventually, I made my way to the top. It was a tough hike, and I've done some hard hikes (Whitney, Charleston). It just kept going up. And not to mention I had no idea where I was really going and brought only a half Nalgene and no food. 

At the top was a small Orthodox church that was surprisingly open. I walked inside and took some photos, which felt sacrilegious, but I did it anyways. 

At the top was also the most serendipitous event of the day. There were two girls at the cross, and I overheard them speaking American English. I usually would keep to myself, but I was too excited at the sound of an American accent, so I approached them and asked, "Are you Americans?" They are both exchange students at the American University in Bulgaria and even expressed interest in doing "outdoorsy" things around Blagoevgrad. Loneliness takes a hit! 

I'm off to meet one of the admissions officers at AUBG for dinner and will then try to stop overthinking the lack-of-information on teaching. Each day will reduce my anxiety as I learn more about my classes, my students, and the new city that I'm lucky to call home. 

Halfway Through Orientation

It's Sunday morning, and we've made it through half of Fulbright Orientation, which has been busy and enlightening.

Each day has involved waking up to an incredible breakfast buffet of every imaginable breakfast food. My choice has usually involved a "palachinka" or a crepe/pancake with a little bit of Nutella spread on it and rolled up. Others opt for the cucumbers...

We go through several different sessions that are not unlike TFA's All Corps, except I have found them more relevant and informative, probably due to the smaller group involved. We've had training on security from U.S. Embassy Officials (don't walk predictable routes, carry passport, etc.) and great sessions from Jessie, a guy contracted through the Embassy to give teacher professional development.

I think the most helpful sessions have been the roundtable talks with former ETAs/returnees who offer great practical advice. There have also been sessions on Bulgarian history from a guy who runs a podcast I actually listened to before coming here. And one more session was on different cultural and ethnic groups here. It's a ton of information to take in but doesn't seem as overwhelming as TFA Institute, probably because the teaching stuff is a "review."

Mock-lessons 

Two experiences so far have stood out to me as worth mentioning:

(1) Dinner at Restaurant Vodenitzata which is in the mountains overlooking Sofia. We had course upon course of different Bulgarian foods, and I got to sit next to the famous (amongst Fulbrighters)  Iliana Dimitrova, the Fulbright ETA Program Director who essentially got us all to Bulgaria in one piece. I mean, she even called the Chicago Consulate of the BG Embassy at 3am her time to set them straight about my visa application.

The dinner also included a traditional Bulgarian folk dance and a firewalking show.

A memorable moment occurred in the bathroom of all places. I was led to the bathroom by a 4 year old (interesting in itself) and once inside, noticed there was a suited man standing there with an ear piece, a la FBI. Turns out he was with the Embassy security, as the Ambassador to Bulgaria was at dinner with us.

(2) Day Trip to the Rila Monastery. The Rila Monastery is this fascinating place tucked away in the Rila Mountains (very close to my placement town of Blagoevgrad). It's an Orthodox monastery from the 10th century and, needless to say, was gorgeous. We had an English tour of the monastery's museum and free time to walk around. We then went down to eat at a nice Bulgarian restaurant where I faced my fear of fish, or риба, and ordered the trout which was caught from the stream at the side of the restaurant. Unfortunately, "trout" included the head and tail and skin and everything in between. A fellow Fulbrighter saved the day and cleaned up the fish so that I could actually look at it, much less eat it. I'll work on my fear of seafood. Sometime.

Incredible frescoes at every turn 

Рилски манастир


 Probably the best part of the trip to Rila was the post-lunch exploration of the stream beneath the restaurant. I failed at an attempt to hold a frog (apparently a fear of mine?) and we engaged in some serious rock-skipping that reminded me of my times at my grandparent's house in Heber Springs. 

I'm looking forward to the next week and meeting my mentor teacher, but I'm most excited about finally getting to go down to Blagoevgrad and settle in to my new home.