Village Life

I'll try to let pictures do most of the talking for this post. I don't have regular access to the internet, so I'm sorry I haven't been able to stay in touch very well :(

This is a picture of some people who came to sing and greet us on our first day of language class!

Language training is sink or swim. We really are in a place where no English is spoken so we get by with the tiny bit of Bulgaring we've learned so far, hand gestures, and lots of smiles!



This is a picture of Zoya and Vitko, my host parents sitting at our front gate. They are extremely kind and hospitable (which also means they try to make me eat a lot of food at every meal)! The house is typical for the area--it has a large garden, a courtyard where we eat and cook when the weather is good, an outhouse for the toilet, and an all-purpose living room/kitchen/bedroom where we can sit when it's too cold to be outside. I have my own room and a shower to use as well. Zoya makes almost all of our meals with ingredients straight from the garden. Yesterday we spent an hour together chopping onions and dill that had just been harvested.

The whole area around Pudriya is incredibly beautiful. Here is the river that runs next to the village.

Three local boys took Ryan and me on a hike up a nearby hill...















And here's a view of the entire town!

Adjusting to life here has been pretty smooth so far. I'm motivated to work hard on the language, even though it seems like I have to hear everything 100 times before I finally get it. I also really enjoy hanging out with the kids. They seem to like us too, at least as a novelty! We play soccer, volleyball, and uno for hours! We have 3-4 hours of language class each day and usually other meetings/training as well. At the end of our time here we will need to complete a project as a team to help prepare us for our permanent site. Thanks to all who have taken time to write--I love hearing from you, even though I'm not able to repond much.