Healthy Minds, Healthy Bodies

The project to purchase fitness equipment is now on the Peace Corps web site! Here is the link where you can contribute: Healthy Minds, Healthy Bodies

Thanks for your support!

Fitness time!

I never expected to be working on a fitness center as a Peace Corps volunteer! And I didn’t learn until I arrived in Bulgaria that obesity is becoming a widespread problem here. Perhaps dietary changes (the increased availability of sweets and processed food) combined with a more sedentary lifestyle is to blame. The village where I live is no exception.

In Gyovren there are 4 factories which employ over 200 women who have repetitive jobs at sewing machines from 8:00am until 5:00pm or later. Chronic neck and back pain are the unfortunate by-products of their labor. Another demographic is women who have young children. In Bulgaria, mothers get two years of paid maternity leave! They can also take a third year without pay, but still reserve their position at their previous place of employment. During the summer, these moms congregate at a café that has some outdoor tables where the kids can play and they can socialize. But when the weather is cold—6 months or more of the year—there is no appropriate place for them to gather or get out of the house. And then there are the men. Most men in Gyovren work in the construction industry. Construction jobs tend to be seasonal—they are more plentiful during the spring and summer. Cafes in the winter are full of unemployed men, passing the time with coffee or alcohol, cards or backgammon. Last but not least, young people express great enthusiasm about the potential for having a place to work-out.

With all of these factors in mind, my counterparts had the idea for a fitness project, using a room in the cultural center. The room that they suggested was the only spare room that belonged to the cultural center at the time: a previous discotech in the basement with less than 8 foot ceilings, lack of ventilation, mold problems, and two tiny windows below ground level. Not exactly ideal, but we started making plans for the project anyway.

As we got further along, the mayor heard about our plans. He came to me and told me what we had already noticed—that the room had some serious deficiencies. As an alternative, he suggested that we look into using the room that used to house the central telephone (during communism, villages had one telephone and a “telephone room”). This room was ideal. It’s 30 square meters in size. It has tall ceilings, three large windows, and no major problems. And, it’s located on the first floor of the cultural center—right next to the stairway that leads to the library where I work. I had no idea it was there!

Just one problem…we didn’t own the room. Sometime after the central telephone was no longer in use, the ownership of the room was given over to a telephone company—Vivacom. For the past 10 years, the room had been sitting unused and locked. Ramadan had tried once to get ownership in order to have a space for a computer lab, but he didn’t get very far before someone told him to “send a letter to Sofia if you have a complaint.”

I asked Ramadan for a contact person and started making phone calls. Lots of phone calls. Amazingly enough, just a few weeks later, three Vivacom employees (from Sofia, Plovdiv, and Devin) came to Gyovren to see the room for themselves and to make a decision about whether they would rent or sell to us. One of the men brought keys to the room and unlocked it so we could have a look inside—bare walls, a large towerish thing with wires and cables, and a sink on the other side of the room. It was perfect! The men went with me upstairs and got right to business—did we want to rent or buy. “Buy,” I said—thinking about how problematic a monthly payment would be. Okay, they answered, how much would you be willing to pay? I asked if they could wait for Ramadan, whom I had hurriedly called once I knew the men were actually coming. Caught off guard, he beat around the bush, but eventually managed to mention 500 leva. The Vivacom men looked at each other. “Could we pay 1,000?” they asked. No, not possible. “Okay then,” the man from Sofia said, “I think we can arrange to have the room given over to the cultural center as a donation.”

And then they were gone! Had I heard correctly?! I was amazed—employees from a large corporation had, in a 30 minute meeting, decided to donate property to a village where they had no connections. I am extremely grateful to these three men, who then made the idea appealing to the Vivacom board which approved the decision on July 21^st. By mid October, thanks to many Vivacom staff people who worked with us, we had all the documentation and legal ownership of the room!

In the meantime, an unexpected opportunity for funding came about. VAST, a Peace Corps related initiative that gives volunteers access to funding for health related projects—specifically those focused on HIV/AIDS—was having a seminar in late June. A fellow volunteer who was also interested in starting a village fitness center called me and pointed out that our ideas could fit within the VAST requirements. We expanded our vision—instead of just a place to work out, why not make these rooms a source of all kinds of health and wellness information—HIV/AIDS education included! We attended a conference in Sliven, Bulgaria about the VAST application process, checked prices for fitness equipment in Plovdiv on the trip home, and turned in our proposals and budgets almost immediately.

We were approved! Funding was limited to around $1,500. For Gyovren, this meant that we could afford to do the repairs to the old central telephone room and buy a few fitness items: an elliptical, an exercise bike, light free weights, yoga mats, and jump ropes. Equipment that would mainly be used for cardio classes. I told my counterparts that after implementing this stage we would look into finding other opportunities for more large-scale equipment.

In the past two weeks (since having official ownership of the room) we have almost finished fixing up the room with the help of volunteers from the village. We have scheduled the “grand opening” for December 1^st, at which point we will have Pilates and aerobic workout classes. However, in order to become sustainable and to reach a wider demographic, there are still several items that we would like to purchase: a treadmill, bench press, combined arm machine, heavier free weights, and a projector for showing fitness DVDs and health related presentations. Our budget for these items is $2,838. I have submitted a proposal through the Peace Corps Partnership Program which provides a way for volunteers to seek donations from friends and family in the states. Once this project is approved by Peace Corps Washington, I will send the link where donations can be made. I am truly excited about the potential for positive change that this project brings. I am also thankful that for all of the decisions and steps still ahead of us (which will require a large measure of cultural understanding), I have friends and co-workers who will do the work alongside me. It will be an adventure!

August

There have been two realities during August that seem to oppose one another: ease of travel, lack of routine, guests, exploring, and festivals. Contrasted with: the month of Ramazan, diligent data entry for library inventory, 6 weekly English classes, a new library worker, and preparing for the fitness room. It’s been an exhilarating month!

Tourism has been a fun aspect to the summer. My counterparts Ramadan and Rufie have a registered guest house for the first time and it has been exciting to watch them transition from hosting the occasional accidental visitor, to running a professional business and marketing what they have to offer. We have had international guests from Germany, Austria, Russia, France, England, and Poland, and more routinely, guests from all over Bulgaria. I have enjoyed translating and getting to share about my experiences here as well as learning a lot about their cultures. It’s also been refreshing to see that the trails we marked between Yagodina and Trigrad (where there are famous caves) have been used by the tourists who stay in Gyovren.

In mid-August I made a quick trip to the beach where I tried out couch surfing for the first time. Great experience! Next week I plan to visit Rila monastery and do some hiking around the seven lakes with a few friends. I’m finally getting to experience some of the famous things that people come to Bulgaria specifically to see.

On weekends when I’m in town I generally get to help harvest, process, and put up in jars whatever vegetable Zeynep is working on at the moment. There have been days of peas, tomatoes, peppers, spinach, beans, and most importantly, potatoes.

Harvesting potatoes involves walking in the freshly re-plowed rows and bending over to pick up all the potatoes in sight. A great hamstring workout!

I am preparing to make a 10 day trip to the US at the end of September. Everything that I’m bringing home as gifts comes directly from the village:

Turkish style slippers made by my next door neighbor, a wool blanket spun and woven by Zeynep for her hope chest, 4 types of wild teas, honey made from a villager’s bee houses, lutenitsa (roasted pepper and tomato sauce), couscous (which we rolled back and forth in long pans until it formed into tiny beads of pasta), and sirene (a sharp feta-like cheese from sheep milk that my landlord canned). I’ve also collected a couple of horo songs that I may bring to the two wedding receptions that I’ll be attending. We’ll see if people join the circle!

Summer

I'm falling a little behind in keeping up this blog, but with temperatures in the 70's and sunlight until 9pm, who has time for reflection? Summer has brought a change in my normal routine (since I don't have classes in the school and kindergarten), but work has picked up speed and I'm certainly not sitting around with nothing to do. There are times while working in the library when I feel restless, but when this is your view from the window, who wouldn't rather be outdoors hiking?!

Sometimes I do get to hike for work related purposes. Recently I worked with two other volunteers from Trigrad and Yagodina on a project to mark the trails between our three villages. The communities donated money and wood to make signs with maps of the trails plus information about regional flora and fauna. We also had wood donated to build birdhouses with the kids. On a Saturday in June, with help from lots of friends, we took the kids hiking on the trails and put up the birdhouses along the way. The three village groups met up in Yagodina where we had a meal together, went in the cave for free, and had a small program with a folk singing group and the kids from Gyovren preforming a couple dances. Here are some of the pictures:

Another project that had been in planning stage since February, finally came to fruition last month. On May 25th and 26th, seven volunteers from the Rhodopes hosted a village tourism development seminar in the beautiful village of Smilian. Our goal was mainly to get people from our villages who are interested in tourism to come together as a region and share ideas plus look for ways to work together. We invited five speakers who came from a wide variety of backgrounds: a woman who owns a winery, a bio-farmer, the owner of a dairy/guest house combination, a government official who has a wealth of regional tourism knowledge, and an adventure tour guide. The seminar was also strategically located in Smilian where the participants were not just talking about village tourism: they were experiencing it! Here is a picture with (most of) the group who attended the seminar:

I really love tourism in Gyovren because it is so authentic. When I invite guests, they get to experience the reality that is Gyovren--not advertising, tourist activities, or cheesy souvenirs. The incredible beauty and panoramic views, the hospitality of the people, and the preserved traditions make Gyovren feel like a hidden treasure waiting for guests to discover.

On a normal day, I can usually be found in the library--trying to keep order with a mob of kids (usually pretty well behaved). I recently received children's artwork from 6 countries (Argentina, Peru, Uganda, Haiti, China, and the US) from an organization called Paintbrush Diplomacy. In a room across from the library I set up a miniature art exhibit along with a game for learning some facts about these countries. The kids also have a place to make their own drawings, and it has been nice to have another activity for the kids after I feel like they've spent enough time using the internet. Here are some of the kids and their drawings:

It looks like the rest of the summer is going to fly by! I'll get to participate in some more activities with the cultural center (including a field trip to a swimming pool with the kids and two days of performing at a Turkish folk festival in the village of Ardino). In August I plan to do classes for English review in the library with kids from 1st-8th grade. We will also be doing book inventory, which is a great opportunity for us to make electronic files (can't wait to use the library labels you sent Auntie Ann!). Also, we've been approved for funding to start a fitness room! I'm really excited about this, but I'll post more later once things get started...

Four Celebrations

Aderlez. May 6^th is Georgov Den (the name day of St. George) in Bulgaria. It has also become a national holiday that celebrates the liberation from the 500 years under the “Turkish yoke” (Ottoman empire). Gyovren, being a Turkish village, has their own version of the holiday called Aderlez. Aderlez is a mish mash of superstitions and traditions. Mainly, it is the occasion when the night battles with the day. It is also a personal indicator of how the summer will go for you (so, don’t oversleep, or you’ll oversleep all summer. Don’t be grumpy, or you’ll be grumpy all summer, etc.). The night before Aderlez, every family makes

kitki (small bouquets with a yellow flower called Iglika). Each bouquet is tied with string and marked with a distinctive trinket (a button, earring, ring, etc) so that everyone knows which is theirs. The kitki sit in a bowl of water outside overnight—in a place where they will be exposed to the moon. The next morning you should wake up (early, of course) and wash your face in the dew—it is supposed to have healing powers on this day. Next women gather together all the kitki and put them in a large bucket of water. As they sing Turkish songs, they pull each kitka out of the water. The line of the song that corresponded with the kitka’s emergence from the water will be the owner’s fortune for the year.

Mine, in case you’re wondering, was: There’s a boy on a distant hill who sees a girl and calls to her. She tells him to wait there and she will come to him. If I had a boyfriend in America, I would find this quite insightful.

Earth Day. Earth day may not have really been on Gyovren’s radar, but it was recognized in Bulgaria. Various groups in Sofia organized a large-scale cleanup that was well publicized on the national news and environmental conscious in general is gaining momentum. My friend Amber, a PCV in Smolyan, set up an on-line clean-up initiative that we joined in Gyovren. Basically, the idea was to clean up the town with a volunteer brigade and then weigh our trash at the end and enter the amount on the web site. This allowed us to see our own results, and also to feel connected to other places all over Bulgaria that were doing the same thing. Not surprisingly, all of the volunteers from Gyovren were kids. They were incredibly enthusiastic and we had a great time!

Potato planting. Potato planting is not an official holiday, but since the whole village starts their planting on the same day, it certainly had the aura of a celebration—or at least a large family reunion. Most of the potato fields are small, confusing plots, marked by boundary stones, which have been passed down from generations. Somehow, they sorted this back out after communist times. Each family has (or borrows) a horse/mule and plow to get their fields ready. This is the men’s work.Next, the women drop potatoes into the furrows (three at a time) and cover them using hoes. I worked with my landlords from 8am until 6:30 with a picnic lunch in the fields. The weather was superb.

Wedding. Weddings are a big deal in Gyovren. They’re expensive, and not every couple will choose to have one (by the way, the groom’s family pays for the wedding in Bulgaria—just a small incentive for me to get married here!). I have been to several Nikias (where the hoja marries the couple in the groom’s home), but this was my first time to experience the wedding celebration. The family prepares food for the entire village—plus all the people they invited who don’t live in the village. We’re talking about 1,000 people! A small wedding is simply not an option. The day before the wedding, I sat outside the groom’s home and peeled potatoes with over 25 other women. The day of the wedding, at 9:30, as I was putting on makeup, I heard clarinets squeaking and drums beating. The wedding procession, starting from the groom’s house, had begun. With musicians in front, they wind their way through the entire village on the way to the bride’s house. Once there, the groom has to “bribe” the bride’s family to enter the house and then has to find her hidden shoe before he can see her. I bet this tradition started because brides needed more time to get ready and these were excellent stall tactics. Now the bride and her family join the procession and they make their way to the court house where they will have the wedding. The musicians and family have towels, clothing, and other household items pinned to them to represent all the stuff that the bride is bringing to her new home. All the people from the village stand along the road to watch the parade. After the official wedding, the couple comes down the steps and the secretary of the mayor throws water on the steps in front of them for good luck. They dance some horo, and then make their way to the school where they have the celebration. At the school, they break bread before going inside (whoever gets the bigger piece will “command” the marriage). Close friends and family get their own procession with music to show off their gifts (including large pieces of furniture) which they bring to the school. At the school, everyone (really, everyone) is served lunch. All you can eat, three types of salad, soup, meatballs, and lots of drinks. Every hallway, every classroom, was filled with makeshift benches and tables. After lunch, the dancing begins. And goes on for a long time. Horo, slow dancing, kuchek. The bride, in her high heels, leads every horo. It’s as if her happiness and radiance is transferred down the line of people as we hold hands and move together. (Check out the slide show below to see all of this in pictures)

A Rainy Day

It’s rainy today. I probably shouldn’t write when it’s rainy because I’ll sound more melancholy. Also, since next Saturday marks one year since I arrived in Bulgaria I’m feeling extra reflective. One year. A year since I drove a car. Pulled warm clothes out of a dryer. Had a drink with ice. If only those were the difficult things to get used to! The real adjustments have been much slower to come to the surface and I still struggle with them: being unsure of my role and priorities, feeling unable to communicate effectively in Bulgarian, experiencing the disparity in workplace norms.

I love life here though. There are moments of truly exquisite happiness that I wouldn’t experience as easily in other settings. Like the enthusiasm of kids. I gave a lesson the other day in the kindergarten and afterwards I got handshakes and hugs from several kids who told me “Nice lesson, we liked it!” I glowed the rest of the day. Having a wood stove in my room is beyond wonderful. It’s May, but I still light a fire in the evenings because hearing the wood crackling as I read a book is just so satisfying. I shower less often here than I did in the states and now a “shower day” is a special one. I start looking forward to it the night before! I can also say that in the area of traveling, I have adjusted to not having a car (which for me meant control and independence) and I get great satisfaction from watching things work out in ways I never expected. I ask for help more often, I meet new people, and I get places more slowly.

Asking for help in general has been an area of growth for me this year. In the U.S., my desire to do things independently was both encouraged and possible. Here, approaching a problem almost always requires relationships. A small example: I was with friends in Smolyan and we needed to make a reservation at a restaurant for a large group of people. Thinking like Americans, we first looked on the web—no luck. Then thought about how nice it would be to have phone books. Finally I called the one person I knew who lived in Smolyan and simply told him that we wanted to make a reservation at such and such a restaurant. And, 5 minutes later, he called back to say that his friend of a friend with a cousin who worked there had called and made our reservation. Yep.

Really, things go much better when I stop trying to use my customary method of setting appointments, posting information, and scheduling things and just…talk to people. Planning, I’ve found, is a value I didn’t know that I held so dearly—perhaps because I had never questioned it or experienced the lack of it. Here I have because there’s a different mode of operation. The majority of the time, work is focused on the immediate and urgent. So, because I sometimes miss my old familiar system, when I get to work with other volunteers and we effortlessly spend hours discussing goals and objectives, making action steps, assigning roles, taking notes, and putting things in excel charts, it is incredibly refreshing. And comical.

Realizing I’ve been here a year tempts me to ask, “What am I accomplishing?” My days are full and I have plenty to do during evenings and weekends as well, and yet, it feels like I’m accomplishing an extraordinarily small amount. There are wonderful moments: reading with kids, showing someone how to look up information on-line, teaching my counterpart to use the sum function in excel, sharing about wedding traditions in English class…but these bright spots are often lost in the vastness of wasted time in the library where I am only keeping it open so that people can facebook and play on-line poker. It makes me wonder if I am just working (because I wouldn’t be comfortable any other way)—taking care of the immediate needs—and forgetting to look for the opportunities that “could be.” Probably so.

I haven’t accomplished much that’s tangible. I haven’t “won” any money. We didn’t get the funding for the park we wanted to make near the entrance to the village. (However, people from the mosque have started working on the retaining wall without outside funding and that is both encouraging and a better way to get the job done) It’s hard not to feel like a failure though at times. Ideas move so slowly to action. I’m hopeful about the year ahead. Mainly because I know that I’ve built trust in relationships. If I am able to accomplish anything, it will only be because people were willing to work with me.

Oh, and most days in Gyovren…are sunny.

Selska Rabota: Village Stuff

Spring is here and people are beginning to emerge from their winter hibernation. It's still too early to start planting most things, but the fields have to be fertilized, cleared, and tilled. Yesterday was sunny and beautiful so I went for a long walk--here are the things I saw:

This is what you do with your martinitsi when you see a budding tree

Terraced fields

This is the path I was on...I've lived here for 8 months now and still can't get over these views!






The second grader gets a turn with the shovel while her family takes a rest


Fields marked with boundary stones


Using horses to transport fertilizer to the fields




I thought sheep only looked this pastoral and perfect in story books


A couple other interesting things...
Ramadan and Rufie let me participate with them in a "Martli Kortli" ritual. It involves lighting little fires with hay and then dancing around/over them while ringing a large bell and singing a song to scare away snakes and other evil things for the year. We made fires all around their house and then went to the kindergarten too.

Derya, my landlords' granddaughter had her 2nd birthday recently. Her big surprise present was a real rabbit from her older cousin :)

Baba Mart

There's no lack of holidays in Bulgaria. On the 1st of March we celebrate Baba Mart (Grandmother March) by making martinitsi--creations with red and white pieces of string. They are most often made into bracelets which you wear until you see the first stork--a sure sign that spring has arrived. Here are some pics from a martinitsa-making contest in the library with the kids:

Another recent activity for kids in the library was a contest to commemorate one of their revolutionary heroes--Vasil Levsky. Rufie wrote up a test with trivia from Levsky's life and then we had the kids work in pairs at the computers. They were supposed to answer the questions they knew and look for the ones that they didn't on-line. Whoever finished first with 100% accuracy was the winning team.

The 8th of March is Women's Day. In Bulgaria it's celebrated somewhat like Mother's Day in the states. The chitalishte (cultural center/library) put on a program for widows and single mothers. It was hosted at the school with lots of food, drinks, and dancing--including dances performed by the kids.

And then there was the program in the kindergarten for the mothers...

Last Saturday I was able to escape Gyovren by catching a ride with the bread delivery man at 5:50am (there are no weekend buses). His route took me within a few kilometers of a ski resort. When we left, it was snowing, but by mid-morning the sky was piercingly blue and the slopes were covered with fresh powder.

In case you're worried that all I do is celebrate holidays and play (not far from the truth!), here are some pictures from the project that Rufie and I submitted in mid-February. We applied for funding to make a garden/tourist rest area near the entrance to the village, next to a historical mosque. The land is currently undeveloped and there is no information about the mosque or the village from the main road. But, since during tourist season up to 1000 cars pass by this spot everyday on their way to visit a nearby cave, there is big potential to attract tourists who previously just didn't know Gyovren existed. We will find out next week if we are approved for the funding.

Moments

A selection of events in no particular order which, for better or worse, left an impression on me this month:

In my Turkish lessons with my neighbor Gulezar (we now meet twice a week), we laugh at my attempts of speaking Turkish because inevitably I use Bulgarian instead without realizing it. They are both foreign to me!

I finished cataloging and organizing the children’s literature in the library with help from several 6^th grade girls. Since then I have been able to look up books for children who ask for specific titles and find them on the shelf. Ah, the allure of efficiency and accomplishing tangible work!

At a café one evening I got an earful of conspiracy theories about what actually happened on September 11^th in America. When I expressed doubts, my friend assured me that he read it on the internet.

While sitting in the library with several kids and a couple teenagers, the chimney on the wood stove disconnected from the wall without me realizing it. Since we’ve become conditioned to semi-smoky rooms we didn’t recognize the problem until Ramadan came in two hours later and immediately pointed out the growing burnt spot on the wall!

All eight fourth graders wrote letters to a second grade classroom in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma. This may be the first time they have used English to really communicate with someone as opposed to doing workbook exercises. They were exuberant!

My friend Ayshe left for 6 months of work in Holland, harvesting mushrooms. I realized I am living on the “sending” side of guest-worker visas. And I miss my friend.

Amber, a fellow volunteer and friend from training came to Gyovren for a weekend visit. On Sunday night we made a Mexican food feast: seasoned ground beef, homemade corn tortillas, fresh olives and guacamole, grated cheese, and sour cream. Zeynep (my landlady) came upstairs to say hello and was willing to try some of our food. She liked it so much that she asked me to cook it again for dinner this week so Sali can try it too.

I attended a wedding that my landlord Sali had been working on arranging for his thirty year old nephew since the new year. He explained to me that until age 25 you can find your own spouse, from age 25-29 your parents have to help out, but after age 30 it’s the responsibility of the whole village!

Staying Warm

In Bulgaria, staying warm is a skill.

6:30am, I wake up and reach for my phone to check the time. It's 45 degrees in my room and I'm not feeling motivated to leave the warmth of my bed. Sometimes life in my house feels like camping. When I get up I have the cold trip to the bathroom. Then I hurry to get wood and start a fire in my room. Sometimes I get back in bed while I wait for the room to heat up a little before getting dressed. Or, I just skip starting a fire altogether and leave the house as quickly as possible. Fortunately for me, when I come home in the evening I immediately go downstairs where Zeynep has been cooking all day and the room is about 80 degrees. Bliss.


I had a great time with my parents and brother when they visited for Christmas. Their time was filled with visiting people (both Bulgarians and other volunteers). Hospitality overload! My family got to experience being told to "Yash" (Eat!) continually and learned that if they finished any part of their meal, they would immediately be served more. They were great travelers--very flexible and adaptable! Plus they brought all kinds of wonderful things from the states (e.g., zip lock bags, peanut butter, and instant oatmeal!). Thank you to everyone who sent gifts with them--I feel incredibly blessed. Below are some pictures from our time together. There are also some pictures of making gingerbread houses with the 5th and 6th graders :)