Super Bowl Dissaster & Random Thoughts

Well after the lengthy and sluggish bus ride from Chirpan to Sofia, I met up with my friend John Maden at an overpriced Irish bar for some burgers. It is the only place I have found in this country that has legit hamburgers. It is not unusual to see hamburgers on a typical Bulgarian menu. However this is just a cruel and deceptive trick, because the hamburger you order will actually be a hot dog cut in half sandwiched by bread and completely saturated in fowl tasting condiments. The Bulgarians haven’t quite mastered the fabrication of a quality hamburger. Well after our 9 leva Guinness’s, burgers and turning down offers from the local pimp, we walked over to Boudreaux’s place. Boudreaux and his wife Andrea are PCVs from Colorado who were placed in Sofia. They are a young married couple that are working for a few various NGOs; one being Habitat for Humanity. After a couple glasses of wine, some great conversations and a few casual smoking sessions with their hookah, it was time for the big game. Greg finally showed up at this point, it was snowing like crazy so the buses were slow and unreliable to say the least. We arrived at JJ Murphy’s Irish pub at 130am. It was packed with PCVs and other ex-pats. I even met a journalist from Seattle, whom I immediately spotted because of his Mariners baseball cap. The game to say the least was very disappointing. Watching some hilarious and creative commercials may have lightened the blow, but no luck with that one. It was and international broadcast, with British announcers and only European commercials. I could not believe how awful the Sea Hawks played. Well I guess we did what was expected and choked under the pressure. I think it’s lame and pathetic for Seattle fans to blame the game on the ref. There is definitely a small margin of error in any game you choose to play. This margin does not lose or win the game; it was the dropped balls and botched plays that led us into failure. Despite the disappointing loss and my severe sleep depravation, I had a great time. It is times like these that I am able to escape from reality and drift into a comfortable home away from home. Just being able to speak English for an entire evening is enough to put a smile on my face.
Living alone has been unpleasant as well as very challenging for me. I am starting to feel like a hermit, and am not enjoying the feeling of solitude. I miss the times that I could just turn on the tube and drink a beer with the roomies after work. Now days I come home from work and don’t say a word until the next morning at work. I hardly ever speak English now days, which has also been adding to the frustration I am feeling. The isolation I feel from the language barrier is magnified by my living situation. Well fortunately I have weekends to blow off steam with friends in my surrounding cities. Also, having Internet access has been wonderful, it helps pass the time, and keeps me connected to the people I care about.
‘Out of site out of mind’ is this why I am becoming more and more comfortable with the problems in my town? I went for a walk the other day around the edges of my city and was completely astonished by what I saw. There were children and old women dumpster diving, and the houses looked unlivable, especially during this brutal and relentless winter. How is it possible for these people to live in such poverty and survive the current temperatures? It snowed aver a foot this weekend, but luckily I have a heater, a warm bed and a boiler that gives me a constant supply of hot water. I actually have not been to the ‘Mahala’ (roma slum) in my town yet. The mahala is completely isolated from the rest of the city and is known to only have an hour of running water per day. I am very bothered by the way these people are often looked at as inhuman, and not respected by the majority of Bulgarians. It is perhaps the biggest and most controversial issue in Bulgaria. This situation makes me feel completely powerless, it has been getting easier and easier for me to forget about this problem and slowly put it out of my mind. A large part of community integration is fitting in and accepting the social norms and values of your neighbors. I have tried to explain my beliefs about ethnic tolerance and discrimination in the past, but have been shot down quickly by a stubborn and conditioned Bulgarian way of thinking. I have not given up on this complicated issue and plan on creating and implementing some ethnic tolerance education projects as soon as I am able to gain respect and acceptance within my community.
When I first arrived in Chirpan my expectations and aspirations were sky high. I felt like I could easily make a very substantial impact on my community. Once in Chirpan, I began to brainstorm potential project ideas that I would be able to accomplish during my time here. I thought about the visible problems such as ethnic tolerance, Education, and city infrastructure. I soon realized that many of my goals were quite possibly too lofty. How can I change the minds of other people? What can one person do? Why would they respect my opinion? What makes them wrong and me right? These questions are a PCVs worst nightmare. As a PCV, it is very easy to become content with mediocrity. Our country directory often tells us that our main objective is to simply integrate and live harmoniously within our community. I feel this is important, but I also feel that I am here for a more important reason. I really would like to make a sustainable impact on my community. The last several months I have thought very hard about these things, but certainly have not figured out how to decode these problems. Only time will tell how this experience plays out.