Cant blog now,

gone diggin'


 

P-Corps Voulunteers on the 2010 Census

Chances are if you didn't study and love Econ. like myself, you will not care too much about this, but for those of you who share the passion of derivatives and equilibrium (Nash or otherwise) I present to you, How Peace Corps Workers are counted in the 2010 census;

"Thank you for your inquiry. Military and federal civilian employees and their dependents (including the Peace Corps) who are serving overseas will be counted in their home state, using administrative record counts from federal agencies. These federal employees will be counted for apportionment purposes only."

--ASK Census
(ask Census.gov)

all…….. the places and spaces i’ve been

one of the best parts of being in peace corps, is that; a lot of the time work and fun look like the same thing.

here are some stories from my service; in order the photos appear
here

There is a little cabin located 4.5 KM outside of my village. It is a nice place to take a hike to and eat lunch. Lunch in the winter is salami/bread/onion and… straight-up animal fat, grilled. It’s actually pretty good, but probably not too good for your health.


Rakia, is a brandy, that people in Bulgaria love to drink and make. There is a distillery in my village. One fine spring day, I had the opportunity to help with the distilling process. We made sure the fire underneath the basins was roaring, and pored the distilled rakia into their containers. Then, we ate some animal fat and drank some beer. It was a good time.

There are a lot of cats that live on my street. I’m more of a dog person, but there is this super ugly cat that hangs out on my terrace sometimes. I threw it some bread because I felt bad for it.

A few weekends ago, we celebrated Meg’s birthday by going to Buzlodja. Buzlodja is an old communists monument that was built for communists party meetings. After Bulgaria became a democracy, Buzlodja was closed-up and forgot about. The building is been badly vandalized, and the windows are all smashed out, but you can still see how cool it was. On the day we went, it was very windy and foggy. Given the spaceshipness of the building, and the creepy post-apocalyptic abandoness, the fog was just the icing on the (birthday) cake.

Last Wednesday (March 3rd) was Bulgaria’s independence day. And even though it is March, and very similar weather to Minnesota, my landlord, his daughter, and my neighbors and I had a barbecue at the picnic area we built last summer. (Finally, the pictures of the picnic area I helped make!)

I’ve been cooking a lot. Banana-bread is a hit here.

The thing that I am starting to realize about service is this; life is characterized by little moments that become routine and you forget how unique and incredible it is that you have the opportunity to be doing things like this.

For instance;
There is a lot of lumbering that goes on in my region, and hence a large forestry department with a lot of forest rangers. Yesterday, a group of forest rangers from my village invited me to come along to mark trees for removal at the peek of a neighboring mountain. We climbed into the forestry jeep, and made the drive on the snowy rudimentary road up the mountain. It was sweet! We were driving through rivers and very narrow roads through a beautiful pristine forest. The road didn’t go all the way to the top so we had to hike up another 300 meters. It was a perfect day to be up there. The sun was bright, and the sky was a marvelous blue, almost as blue as it is in Duluth…almost. There were some big caves we got to poke around but didn’t want to go to in-depth on account of the 500 kilogram bear that lives up there.

With sunburned faces, we went and had a picnic and ate some animal fat.


Joke!

Q. What is a witch’s’ favorite subject?


A. SPELLING!!!!!

music from you tube

Winter Life

Sometimes it snows, sometimes that snow melts, and sometimes it snows again. But on the whole, my village hasn't seen any snow or arctic days like Minnesota. Yesterday, there was a ski swap in Sofia. From the looks of it, a decent snowboard, boots, and bindings would have gone for less than 300 lev ($220.47 USD as of today). This would have been a pretty good deal, but with such a mild winter who knows if I could have used it by February?!

It hasn't been too difficult to stay busy though. I brought some books back from home, a new hard drive loaded with movies and TV shows, some charcoal pencils and a sketch pad, a few new records to listen to, and since it has been so cold hiking the mountains is still an option (and as outrageous as it may sound, indeed apart of my work!).

Before the holidays, my Peace Corps boss and my village bosses and myself had a meeting to discuss the next 6 months of my service. The result was to focus more on tourism development and less on teaching English to the kids. I'm not complaining about that. My English club once a week and occasionally guess teaching the English class is plenty.

Here are some photographs: Take note of the traditional Rhodope garments and artifacts. Kind of neat.

{winter life}-> This one is for you Tony. Thanks for getting me back on the Horse. or perhaps in my case, the donkey.)

in stich

unexpectedly, i didnt have to teach today; so i thought



i have a new camera and i should



climb a mountain




then there was this other time i climbed a mountain. it was warmer then.

Snow-you-didn’t!

So we have snow here now. And that is tremendous! (no picture ,slight camera issue, should be soon though...) The snow is great because it makes this tiny village on top of a mountain feel like some stylish resort in aspen. It is also exciting because there is always some special energy that accompanies the first snow of the season.

With the snow and the lower temperatures I have been using my wood stove. It is kind of fun to start a fire in your house, not to mention it can get quite warm in my two rooms. Strange how in my Peace Corps home,it will be warmer this winter than my home in the United States.

On Halloween weekend, I had the chance to go visit and celebrate with a bunch of other Peace Corps Volunteers. It was sweet! We haven’t had the chance to socialize with each other without any Peace Corps obligations in a real long time. We also played a game of American Football and that was radical.

Things I am looking forward too: Slowly but surely starting projects. Thursdays, I run an English club where we speak English or work on assignments. I will be starting a scouts group where we hang out and do scouts type of activities (un-official scouts, real scouts is expensive!) also there is an English class for adults in the works. All these projects, along with studying will really help my Bulgarian language progress. Once my Bulgarian is sufficient, then I will be able to move onto other projects in the business development and (hopefully) micro-finance.




Joke.

Q: What do you call an avid gardener?


A: Herb!